I’ve just noticed that the bottom left corner of my laptop casing is cracked - to the point where a little bit has actually come off! I’m not very impressed with this, as checking the bottom right (i.e. bottom right left when working on it) reveals that has a crack as well.

I think I’ll end up taking it back to Currys and complaining, I only had the laptop for ~6 months, which means it’s still under warranty

I’ve posted my thoughts of Ubuntu 8.04 Beta up on http://blog.joeb454.com

If you want more precision, click here I hope you enjoy reading it.

I’m writing this from the Live CD of the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) Beta.

I’m REALLY impressed, more than I was with Gutsy (7.10)! I’ll most likely be installing this later on tonight, and I’ll put up the results on my other blog (blog.joeb454.com) afterwards. I’m out til later tonight, and most of tomorrow, but the results will definitely be up at some point Everything seems to be working out the box which is nice.

Also this mark’s the first time I’ve used a Linux disc-burning app…I’m using Windows less and less now-a-days, though despite that, I’ll keep it on my laptop, just because I’d find it hard to delete something I’ve paid for

Currently, RAM (Random Access Memory) is coming in sizes of ~4 Gigabytes, that’s the kind of maximum you would expect to see in a modern (albeit high end) PC. However this will most likely increase in the next few years, as it has in the past.

For example 2.5 years ago, my family bought a PC that had 256Mb of RAM, which we upgraded to 512Mb, and that was quite a lot back then, but a year later, most PC’s were coming with a minimum of 512Mb, the majority with 1Gb.

So I think in 5 years time, we’ll easily be looking at what we consider stupid amounts of RAM, though most likely for servers, not desktop machines. In fact I was just reading an article on Slashdot about “How To Use a Terabyte of RAM”, it was more specifically for the Linux Kernel, however it provokes some interesting thoughts on what could possibly be done with that much RAM.

As I mentioned in an earlier post of mine, I recently upgraded my Windows Vista install, to Windows Vista Ultimate, as I managed to get a copy for nothing

Anyway, I reinstalled GRUB as I said I would, but only got round to doing it 6 days later, and when I finally booted back into Ubuntu, I realised just how much I’d missed Ubuntu/Linux during those last 6 days, it was a strange feeling, though it leads me to believe that I’m beginning to prefer using Linux over Windows, and my usage habit shows this as well

Still, it can only be a good thing

I just updated the programs page to include a little bit of information about Sabre, the bluetooth AmaroK plugin that a couple of the UF Beginners Team members put together

Check it out here

So, as requested, I decided to compare the beta’s of all the latest browsers using the Acid 3 test with somewhat surprising results…Below you will find screenshots of the results from IE8 Beta 1, Firefox 3 Beta 4, & Opera 9.5 Beta.

Internet Explorer 8 Test Result:

Firefox 3 Test Result:

Opera 9.5 Test Result:

As you can see - IE8 fails miserably! It initially only gets 10/100, but after a few seconds it increases to 17/100, which I find odd. Though admittedly IE8 is intended for developers to begin getting their pages compatible with IE8. Opera 9.5 also fails the test, though with a more respectable 60/100, which increased from somewhere around 47 after about a second or so.

Finally, Firefox 3, which scores 67/100 is the only browser I tested which doesn’t have the word “fail” on the end result, though I don’t think that counts as a pass because it didn’t score 100.

For what it’s worth, the end result should look like this reference rendering (as provided by acidtests.org).

As mentioned in the previous post, I upgraded to Vista Ultimate last night, and then somewhere on the ‘Net I read about Internet Explorer 8 (I’ve been following the news of it when I see it). And I have to say - it’s pretty much the same though the Back & Forward buttons have been moved and altered slightly.

I can’t post a proper review of it because I use Firefox 3 as my main browser, but I might give it a try and see if I find any interesting bug’s (or “features”) when I’m using it. Microsoft have included an “Emulate IE7″ button, which should render a page EXACTLY as IE7 does, though I’ve found Xbox.com doesn’t render correctly (I think this may be due to an issue with Flash not being installed correctly in my IE8 install though)

I also noticed just before publishing this, that the top level domain is highlighted different, it’s displayed like this:

And then if you hover the mouse over it, the whole URL becomes black (I assume this is for readability).

I upgraded my Windows Vista install last night, I went from Home Premium to Ultimate (I have a cool DreamScene background now ;)) I’ll have to reinstall GRUB at some point, because the upgrade means I can’t boot into Ubuntu…though this is a good thing at the minute, because it means I can’t fiddle with it (I always end up doing something like that :p)

Also I think I’ll be buying an Xbox 360 Elite sometime in the next 3-5 weeks my brother want’s his own Xbox 360, so I figured I might buy an Elite (bigger hard drive + HDMI = happy Joe ;)) But I’m definitely waiting a little while, because just today, Microsoft announced a price drop in the Europe & UK Xbox 360 SKU’s so that’s good news for me!

UPDATE: I just noticed that when I have DreamScene running, if I unplug the laptop from charge, it pauses the video to conserve battery life! I think that’s a clever little feature Especially because the background still looks good when paused.

As far as I was aware, Dell PC’s are only available by buying direct from Dell…so howcome I went to my local PC World / Currys earlier, and in BOTH stores (they are owned by the same parent company) there were Dell PC’s there on the shelf.

I’m somewhat confused about this because it’s only very recently I’ve started to see them on store shelves, if anybody can shed some light on this it’d be much appreciated